Revolution Software

Lore & Background

The company's logo was inspired by the 1981 film Excalibur and designed in collaboration with a graphic design firm in Hull. Revolution released Lure of the Temptress in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS; it was both critically and commercially a success. The game was released as freeware on 1 April 2003. Their next game, Beneath a Steel Sky, was released in 1994 and became a hit on the Amiga and IBM PC compatibles. In that period it also ported Sierra's King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow to the Amiga. Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars was released for PC and PlayStation in 1996 and was later ported to the Game Boy Advance in 2002. The game was quickly followed by a well-received sequel, Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror. In July 2000, the company released its first 3D game In Cold Blood for the PlayStation (later released for Windows in October 2000). In December 2000, the company also released a children's adventure game Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado. The company then started work on Good Cop Bad Cop, an action game for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, but the game was eventually cancelled so that the company could concentrate on Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon. Released in November 2003, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon featured 3D graphics. Revolution released Broken Sword: The Angel of Death on 15 September 2006. On 1 March 2009, Revolution Software released a director's cut version of its first Broken Sword series, titled Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut, for Wii and Nintendo DS platforms (later on iOS, Windows and OS X). In October 2009, Beneath a Steel Sky – Remastered was made available on the Apple App Store. The company announced the remastered edition of the second game in the Broken Sword series on 9 December 2010, called Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror – Remastered. The game was released in late 2010 on iPhone, April 2011 on OS X and May 2011 on Windows. On 25 July 2012, Charles Cecil posted on his personal Facebook account about the next game, which was officially announced to be a fifth entry in the series: Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse. After the release of Beneath a Steel Sky – Remastered, Charles Cecil and Dave Gibbons stated that a sequel could be likely. During the Broken Sword 5 crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, the company originally put Beneath a Steel Sky 2 a

In Their Own Story

Fog rolled off the Thames and pooled in the gutters of a London that was not quite London. Deuce Blackwell stood beneath a gas lamp whose flame burned a faint, wrong violet, his coat collar turned up against a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Somewhere above, in a flat that should not have existed on that street, a clock was counting backward. He adjusted his gloves, pulled a folded letter from his breast pocket, and read the single line one more time. Then he stepped off the curb and into the mist, and the city rearranged itself around his footsteps like a sentence being quietly edited.

Reader's Guide

Revolution Software's games include Lure of the Temptress (1992), Beneath a Steel Sky (1994), Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996), Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror (1997), In Cold Blood (2000), Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado (2000), Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon (2003), Broken Sword: The Angel of Death (2006), Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut (2009), Beneath a Steel Sky – Remastered (2009), Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror – Remastered (2010), Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse (2013), and the upcoming Broken Sword: Parzival's Stone (2024) and Shadow of the Templars Reforged (2024).

Did You Know?

• Revolution Software was founded in 1989, not 1990.
• The company is based in York, England, not Chertsey, Surrey.
• The Blackwell series was not developed by Revolution Software; it was created by Wadjet Eye Games.
• Revolution Software's early games include Lure of the Temptress, Beneath a Steel Sky, and Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, not They Never Put This In The Book or Grotesque Tales.
• The Hobbit (1998) is not a Revolution Software game; it was developed by Inevitable Entertainment.